The Everyday Human

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 6

Fear is a powerful thing and it can teach us great lessons about ourselves. But do not respect it more than your own needs for language and definition. Stand before it and listen to it, taking from it what you need, and when you are ready, speak your command and banish it back into the shadows before it even has a chance to think about choking you with silence.

Take then what you have learned into the world, and speak and act with it.

• Reflection title: Learn, Banish, Speak, Act
• Creative inspiration: Audre Lorde, "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action"
• Reflection question: Am I respecting fear more than my own needs? Am I trying to bury my fears in the backyard, out of sight and out of mind, or am I learning from them at my command?

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 5

“Ah, the great myth and legend.”

“Do no such times exist?”

“Depends on where you stand and what you see,” she says. Takes a moment, another sip. “Even then, there’s war to be found in a field of flowers among the ants and bees and peace and calm to be found in a field of battle among soldiers in prayer and meditation.”

“So it depends on where I stand and what I see.”

“Every day, every year, every decade, every century—these are nothing to me, you know—” That edge again.

“I know.”

“—there will be what you call pain and pleasure and war and peace and good and evil. It comes and goes endlessly. Like the tides, like the winds. And wherever it is you stand, and whatever it is you see, you choose what you will do with it—what you will do next with your time here. There are no such times,” she says, fingers tapping gently on the side of her teacup, “there are only all times.”

• Reflection title: Such Times / All Times
• Creative inspiration: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
• Reflection question: Do I subscribe to the myth and legend of calm and peaceful times? What am I doing with my times—which are part of all times?

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 4

And then to push it further beneath that gray and somber cloud, I look at the world around me and see just how divided we’ve become, but then I stop and remind myself that we’ve probably always been this divided because of the nature of labels and masks and borders and beliefs being applied to territorial animals who’ve developed a habit for walking upright, wearing clothes, and living in the skeletons of trees.

You have to laugh.

I then look at my child and see her with the other maskless children playing in the forest and in the shallows of the pond, and while I know they will soon one day find a hole filled with buried masks to wear or will be given masks to wear by those grownups already wearing masks, I see now that they are their true selves: unafraid to laugh and scream and howl and cry and climb a tree or run and jump into the pond and fill their boots with mud and tadpoles. They wear no masks and nothing is hidden as they pass each other by and there is no judgment.

When I see this, I know it is time to silence my thoughts and listen to the lessons they are teaching. To shed my fears of what others might think and just be . . . maskless.

• Reflection title: Who’s There Beneath Your Mask?
• Creative inspiration: Shel Silverstein, "Masks"
• Reflection question: When did I last shed my masks to see my true self? Do I even know what my true self looks like, or is it time I find out?

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 3

Packing day is a ways off. By the calendar Fox keeps in his mind, he has about a month or so before the day is upon him. (He’d tried the paper calendars and planners, but they just wouldn’t stick. He doesn’t have the personality for it—so he tells himself.)

As the days tick by, he sees more and more of his neighbors leaving. There goes Badger and her two cubs—everything they own packed on her back. “Getting closer now, Fox,” Badger says. “Could hear the saws cutting and the dozers cracking on by us.”

“Plenty of time,” says Fox. “Plenty of time.”

But inside, Fox trembles as the seconds and minutes and hours pass.

A week comes and goes and more of his neighbors leave the forest. Mockingbird and her fledglings hop along the path, traveling light with nothing but little packs on their backs. “Took down our tree,” she says to Fox. “Nothing left of it but woodchips. Aren’t you leaving?”

“Terribly sorry to hear,” Fox says, ignoring her question.

If he doesn’t answer the question—if he doesn’t think about it, it’s not real, is it?

• Reflection title: The Fox and the Choice
• Creative inspiration: Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself
• Reflection question: What task am I putting off out of fear? Will I just do it now, rather than live with the fear of it?
  
  

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 2

It is after these moments of fear from your brush with Death, when your heart is beating and your breath is rapid, and perhaps when you wear a near-manic smile on your face at the fact that you just skid off a snowy road into a ditch and totaled your car yet survived without a scratch, or near fell off a cliff in another country, or survived a fall from a ladder with no more than a sprained ankle, or came out the other side of a turbulence so bad the passengers around you broke into tears and prayer—it’s after these moments that you are the most alive. 

And it can only be from coming so close to Death.

While some intentionally seek similar adrenaline-affecting moments out (you might know the type)—you don’t have to. I certainly don’t. They’ll find you easy enough, and often at a time and place when you least expect them. 

All you have to do is wait, and in the meantime, live your life.

• Reflection title: Have Patience
• Creative inspiration: Mary Oliver, "May"
• Reflection question: What brushes with Death have reminded me of my fragile mortality? What did I learn from the fear that came with them—if anything?

October: On Fear, Doubt, and Uncertainty

October 1

But this fear of failure, and really most other fears that might float through my mind on a given day are created by me—by my mind alone. They come from nowhere and no one else. These fears, if I let them, will back me into that corner. They will take control, freezing me into a creative or personal decision-making paralysis. Because I’m safe from failure or consequences or outcomes as long as I don’t act, right? But what kind of life would that be? The life of a frightened animal, quivering in a corner and afraid of its own shadow. 

No, that is no life for me. So instead, I face my fear. I ask myself if it is real or warranted or based on truth. And it is not based on truth. It hardly ever is. It is based on my perception of what is happening in front of me.

Well, then . . . what is fear?

It is a fabricated spirit conjured from my own mind, born of my own insecurities and as such, I have complete control over it. I will face it, observe it, feel its effects, but not let it affect me—rather I will let it pass through and be on its way.

I will bid it farewell.

And when it is gone, I will remain.

• Reflection title: What Is Fear?
• Creative inspiration: Frank Herbert, Dune
• Reflection question: Do I understand where my fears are coming from and what they are? Am I in control, or is fear killing my mind?

September: On Friendship and Connection

September 30

Let it all go and relish in knowing your presence is a comfort. Relish your moments of happiness walking in the woods with a loved one, giving and receiving gifts, laughing, crying, smiling, and talking together . . . the moments of holding one another, because that might be it.

That might be the whole reason for everything.

• Reflection title: The Whole Reason for Everything
• Creative inspiration: Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
• Reflection question: Am I taking in the moments with my loved ones and feeling the happiness of being loved and knowing my presence is a comfort to them and theirs a comfort to me? Is this my reason for everything?
  
  

September: On Friendship and Connection

September 29

If you find yourself mistrusting—there could very well be a valid reason for it, but perhaps more often than not, the mistrust stems from your own insecurities—something you need to confront before pinning the blame on an innocent party. 

If you find yourself the subject of mistrust in a relationship, it’s best to refrain from becoming defensive off the bat and consider what has happened and where the other person is coming from. 

In either case, take the blaming, sneaking, spying, wall-building, silent treatment—take all of that and pull it by the roots. Instead, open up the floor to honest communication. Ask questions, explain yourself, and quite simply, tell the truth.

Can the truth end relationships? Of course it can, but it’s better to breathe in the clean air of honesty and integrity than choke on the clouds of deceit and duplicity.

In most cases, though, once the dust settles, the truth will only serve to strengthen the foundation.

• Reflection title: Pull It by the Roots
• Creative inspiration: Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis
• Reflection question: Do I hold any mistrust in my relationships? Are there areas where they could benefit from honest communication and discussion?

September: On Friendship and Connection

September 28

The pane splinters and breaks and shatters and the shards fly past them, cutting them, leaving large, gaping wounds that they think is the cause of the end. But the cracks were there all along, digging soft into them to the point they couldn’t feel that slowly, oh so very slowly the flowing blood of their friendship was leaking dry all along.

A sad story for Large—he believed this whole time he was helping. Sadder, perhaps for Small, who all along believed he needed help. It could have been a beautiful and tall and green tree, but it became something instead twisted and maimed and disfigured, destined to fail and fall.

A reminder here or there would have done them a service. To be there for each other and support each other. To help one another, of course. And to teach one another when you can, but without arrogance and without condescension. A reminder that you can’t carry it all for them all the time. A reminder that friends are many things, but they are not pack mules, nor are they delicate plants that need constant care.

A reminder . . . to carry it together.

• Reflection title: Carry It Together
• Creative inspiration: Akira
• Reflection question: Am I carrying too much for my friends? Are they carrying too much for me? What needs to be adjusted so that we can carry it together?

September: On Friendship and Connection

September 27

A young boy living next door.

A young girl playing blocks in preschool.

An altar boy who rang the bells when I forgot.

A new kid in class from the other side of the island.

Another kid with brown hair who didn’t fit into any cliques in high school.

A barista in a coffee shop.

A kid with a BMX bike in the backyard.

An expo in the chaotic kitchen at Applebees.

A quiet guy in the back of Linguistics.

A young woman across the coffee table at a college party.

A comic artist in Toronto.

A cousin by blood and childhood but friend as adults.

A husband to the vendor across the aisle at a small art show.

A rock climbing instructor.

A~

We are all strangers, or merely a label, to someone . . . until we’re not. 

Until they know us and see us for the humans we are.

• Reflection title: Who Were They Before?
• Creative inspiration: Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter
• Reflection question: Think of the friends you’ve made in life. Who were they before you became friends—when they were still strangers?